Rhode Island Sex Trafficking Arrest

Rhode Island Sex Trafficking Arrest

Posted By
Attorney Robert H. Humprhey

As reported by Amanda Milkovits in the March 24, 2015 edition of the Providence
Journal, a Massachusetts man has been charged with sex trafficking of
a minor and possession of drugs. The victim was a teenage girl from Massachusetts.
The man found the teenager online and the two became friends. She later
run away and met the man. He then advertised her for sex using a website
called Backpage.com. Undercover Rhode Island State Police arranged a meeting
through the website and later arrested the man. At the time of his arrest,
police also found crack cocaine in the motel room.

Pursuant to Rhode Island General Laws 11-67-6, sexual trafficking of a
minor is defined as any person who:

(1) Recruits, employs, entices, solicits, isolates, harbors, transports,
provides, persuades, obtains, or maintains, or so attempts, any minor
for the purposes of commercial sex acts; or

(2) Sells or purchases a minor for the purposes of commercial sex acts; or

(3) Benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation
in a venture which has engaged in an act described in subdivision (1)
or (2); or

(c) Every person who shall commit sex trafficking of a minor.

(1) "Commercial sex act" means any sex act or sexually explicit
performance on account of which anything of value is given, promised to,
or received, directly or indirectly, by any person.

(2) "Minor" refers to any natural person under eighteen (18)
years of age.

(3) "Person" includes an individual, corporation, partnership,
association, a government body, a municipal corporation, or any other
legal entity.

(4) "Sex act" means sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio,
anal intercourse, and digital intrusion or intrusion by any object into
the genital opening or anal opening of another person's body or the
stimulation by hand of another's genitals for the purposes of arousing
or gratifying the sexual desire of either person.

(5) "Sexually-explicit performance" means an act or show, intended
to arouse, satisfy the sexual desires of, or appeal to the prurient interests
of patrons or viewers, whether public or private, live, photographed,
recorded, or videotaped.

The penalties if convicted include not more than forty (40) years imprisonment
or a fine of up to forty thousand dollars ($40,000), or both.